Dark Times
Hello young mages and wizards of future repute. Before I begin this week’s letter, I feel compelled to address the oliphaunt in the room (mostly because every young wizard who reads these letters seems to have written in asking for my opinion on it). Yes, I am aware of the rise of the new Dark Lord in the North. No, none of our work at the Grand Celestio Council of Wizards has been impacted by the news.
I will admit, it’s slightly surreal to be in this position, living through an event like this and continuing to go to work as if nothing’s happening. Of course, as a child I heard of the attempts of Dark Lords to rise to power, we all have, but as a child you assume the wizards and heroes of the world have things under control, and you go back to school. Now I know that reality is much more nonchalant about these types of situations. Work as a Mid-Level Mage has gone on as normal for me. Any clients who are concerned about the rise of a Dark Lord were already gathering supplies long before the rest of us realized we should be concerned, and the rest of the clients either don’t care or think the conquest of a new Dark Lord will turn out good for them, somehow.
I try to refrain from calling our clients dumb (I keep a small polished green stone by my basin of water that glows when clients attempt to lie to me, so you can infer what its doing as I write this sentence; I didn’t realize it reacted to written communication) but the fact that so many of these kings believe the rise of a Dark Lord will be good for their economies is astounding to me. I suppose the logic, if there is any, is that the Dark Lord will take out these kings’ opponents, settling their disputes, but somehow this logic also convinces the kings the Dark Lord will not do the exact same thing to their kingdoms?
The kings who are in favor of the rise of the Dark Lord are overly concerned that the wizards of the Grand Celestio Council are going to use our magic to interfere in some way. They shouldn’t worry, because if they read our guidelines even a little bit, or any of our mission statement, they’d know the Council is not philanthropic in any way. All the magic we do here is for profit, so if a client uses our services to fight the Dark Lord we will oblige, but conversely, the Dark Lord himself could employ our services and we’d be just as “happy” to help. The higher up Mages don’t like when we express our personal political opinions, and so I will hold my tongue now.
In unrelated news, I accidentally blinded myself today. I was working on an invisible blindfold spell, particularly useful when transporting prisoners that you don’t want to look like prisoners, and perhaps too much was going on in my mind, because I accidentally licked my finger after stirring it in my potion, and all at once my vision left me. Glad to know my potion work is effective, unfortunate that the antidote was in a cabinet on the far side of the office. There was a few seconds where I felt confident in my ability to traverse the demi-plane without sight, and those hopes were dashed upon the rocks as soon as I stood up and tripped over my own chair, tumbling down for all my coworkers to see, I assume.
May the moon shine favorably and without hesitation upon you,
Alexan Drytus
